


when is a monster not a monster?

by ohyondermemphis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Background Wolfstar, Canonical Child Abuse, Horcrux!Harry, M/M, Offscreen Psychological Manipulation, Soulmates, grey!Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-22 19:16:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19976875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohyondermemphis/pseuds/ohyondermemphis
Summary: Harry Potter, ages 1 to 19.An origin story where the horcrux inside Harry is a major influence.





	when is a monster not a monster?

**Author's Note:**

> Because. When you love him.

1, found (as all good and terrible things are)

The green light illuminates everything. Like _her_ eyes. Mum. Mum. He hiccups, bawls as he reaches through the bars for her. 

A wind blows through the soft tuft of his hair, dries the tears on his face, warms him. 

His voice echoes around him, winding in his head and his heart, _I will come back to you_. 

The wind blows once more, twirling around him in his crib, his head numb and pain free. He’s asleep before Severus shows up. 

6

He runs, runs, runs as fast as his little legs can carry him. Vernon grunts, his tell right before he can snatch Harry up, good and proper, but Harry hears it. He sweeps low, socks sliding on the hardwood, dodging out of bruising hands. 

There is too much terror inside him to celebrate this small victory and he can’t keep his breath from hitching, he’s panicking, and he has no time to panic. 

He slides right into the door, locked and bolted from the inside. A terrible mistake. 

Vernon knocks him into the wall before he can take another step. He’ll never run toward a locked door again. 

11

The boy in the mirror looks like him, same inky blackness in their curls, same sharpness in their jaw. That same starvation look on all the muggle magazines that the upper years read in the common room sometimes. Heroin chic, Hermione has explained to them, disgust plain all over her own rounded face. 

Her features were full, healthy, the baby fat of childhood on almost everyone in their year. They all looked as if they had never known what it felt like in the dark, empty, and alone and _hungry_ , stomach’s gnawing whispering dark lullabies to sleep. 

They didn’t have that starkness. 

Not like him. 

Not like the boy in the mirror. 

His hand reaches out, ghosts over the slick surface, touching fingertips to the boy through time and space. They follow each other with their eyes, green on brown so deep it looks red, _burgundy_. When the boy smiles a dimple winks, a star that shines just for Harry, his face a burst of nebula.

He goes to visit the boy for weeks. Long, glorious nights in front of the mirror, with the boy. He hisses at Harry and Harry _understands_ , just like the boa at the zoo, but better, meaningful in a way that he’s unused to, wonderfully charmed by. He listens to the words, the emotions, and even to those hissing snarls when Headmaster Dumbledore gently, but firmly, eases him away from the mirror, the boy. 

When next he sees the mirror again, the boy is still there, but Harry’s in the mirror too now and gold drips down, languid and iridescent, coating the twins. But no stone. And Quirrell is still melted skin under his hands. The smell lingers disgustingly in the room and that horrible voice echoing inside his head still bounces against the walls. 

When they find him, the mirror is shattered. 

He finishes the school year in the infirmary, fussed over and finally warm again. His mind inevitably goes back to the boy. 

Harry is enamored, lost. He doesn’t know that yet, he doesn’t know that what he feels is the toxic tender yearning of want. Only that this tendril, grown best in the dark corner of his mind that isn’t his mind (the corner of his mind that recognizes itself) wraps shackle tight around the sweet bud of his little heart, thorns snagging in tight to never let go. 

They will never let go. 

12

It’s the boy. But it’s not the boy. He’s grown tall, too tall for a boy of sixteen. He looks as if he could crush all the tenderness out of Harry if he was so inclined, and there is an inclination for something terrible and violent in those dark, dark eyes. Tom Riddle’s body is less lean than it is mean, the tendons in his hands stand out against the wand it holds, his other hand steady. They don’t shake like Harry’s. 

All the bravado that has led him to this point disappears. He is hungry and raw and nerveless. He drops his wand like an afterthought. The sharp clatter of wood on stone makes him jump. He could do this boy no harm, he could not raise a hand against him. 

Tom Riddle says nothing and Ginny’s body grows even more faint as the silence stretches between them. His body pulses, almost corporeal, the static at his edges finally solidifying. 

He is in front of Harry instantaneously.

The hand that doesn’t shake, whose tendons stretch across like the snake that haunts Harry’s beloved school, cups preciously his face. No one’s ever touched him like this, like he’s something treasured, wanted. Tom’s lips seal themselves across his jagged scar.

Harry could die. Die happy. His heart beats a hopeless rhythm. It burns bright, a home fire that lights itself only for this unattainable boy.

Harry’s hands are small and dirty, bunched into Tom Riddle’s archaic uniform. He breathes in the smell of earth, and dust, and something that lingers, something that twirls with the breeze coming from the awning maw behind them. It is undefinable, but to him it's something that makes him feel alive. It’s the roar of the crowd after every caught snitch, the warmth that rattles around in his chest when he’s caught between the smiles of Ron and Hermione (he feels a shallow gouge of guilt, an emotion that blinks in and out of life).

_”I will come back to you.”_ Harry immediately looks up. It is a promise tinged with a threat, it sounds dark coming out of his mouth, a language that is shared only by them. It is sacred. Harry’s never had anyone promise him something before. It feels like a key in a lock, something set in stone. It lights his frail heart, to see and be seen. His love is all consuming, it is strange and bewildering but it feels right, an extension of himself like eleven inches of holly. 

Tom Riddle takes the diary (and one little boy’s heart) with him when he leaves. 

13 

Harry’s spends his summer withdrawn. He can’t even get out of bed some days, and mostly the Dursley’s have ignored him, unless they need something. Then he rises, as dead as Ginny Weasley, to do their bidding. 

They don’t ask any questions. He doesn’t talk. It suits them perfectly. 

Even Dudley, years of torment and pettiness between them, keeps his distance. They are afraid of the look in his eyes, but Harry hasn’t properly looked into a mirror since _that_ mirror. 

He is buried in guilt, but so full of love for Tom Riddle that he doesn’t know which one causes the lack of appetite, the sleepiness. He aches for him. Harry has never been heartsick, never knew that he could long for anything other than a home, other than warmth. Tom Riddle is cold, through and through. He is angry and spiteful and beautiful and radiant. 

Harry hates himself most in these summer months just because he can’t bring himself to hate Tom. 

Hogwarts is both a blessing and a curse in equal measure. School is a distraction that Harry is glad for. But. The Weasley’s do not come back. 

He writes to Ron immediately from the owlery, Hedwig sitting sweetly on his shoulder. He pours the torture that holds firm to his soul on the paper in the form of his sincerest apologies, his hope for healing. He knows they will never be enough. 

It’s six months before Ron writes him back, Harry supposes that’s fair. It isn’t the red angry ball of torment that Harry fears, it’s quiet and thoughtful. It’s a realization that sometimes the world is cruel to children, that sometimes things just aren’t going to be ok. Hermione is proud when she reads it, tears coming to her sweet eyes. They’ve been going to St. Mungos, seeing a grief counselor, the entire Weasley clan, a row of redheads (minus one) on hard benches, an ache that can be cauterized given time and effort. 

Harry, himself, tries not to think about it. 

It definitely isn’t even a thought in his head that Sirius Black is after him, he finds that he cares less and less about being a hero. Defeat, tasted so absolutely, is hard to swallow again. Hermione, thankfully, only pushes him when schoolwork is involved. Something he’s glad to lose himself in. The glide together like the twins he once saw in the mirror, and he clings to her like the little lost bird he is. Hermione is a barrier and a buffer, and what’s left of his heart is hers completely, he’s never had a truer friend, he’ll never appreciate it now as he once would have. 

Like the godfather he finds out about in Dumbledore’s office at the end of the year and   
when Sirius is exonerated it barely even registers. 

He meets him within the month. Dumbledore takes him to the heart of London, loud noises and people, too many people, to the ancestral home of Sirius Black. He is gaunt, pale, his dark eyes are excruciatingly puppy dogged. Harry feels nothing but guilt at his lack of happiness. One hour together and Sirius tells him he’s petitioned the Ministry for his custody, he wants Harry to live with him. 

Harry only wants Tom. _He had promised._ Harry holds the words in the center of the apathy in his heart. 

He smiles at Sirius, but it doesn’t matter to him, not in any way it once would. 

He makes plan to meet Hermione in Diagon Alley and Sirius plays tour guide to her parents, delighted by their judge free eyes. Hermione and Harry walk, arm in arm. She’s tender, protectively hovers so felicitously around Harry. He wishes some of her never ending exuberance could touch him. His joy is tied to one only. 

Hermione is buried in one high shelf at Flourish and Blotts, stairs and floors of books between them when Draco Malfoy corners him. 

The noise dulls as he walks Harry backwards, a strong grip on his sides. Too close. Harry can’t get his mouth to move. Draco has grown, everyone but Harry, and as he looks up and up until he gets lost in the dark waters of Draco’s - not Draco’s - _hishishis_ eyes. 

He feels hypnotized, lost in the depths, absolutely divine in the curve of his smile, the tilt of his head. He brushes lips over Harry’s, and he opens his mouth, obedient in a way that never felt right, never felt so good until Tom Riddle had licked the seam of his lips, looked into his eyes as if to say, _you will open only for me._

Harry pushes to his toes, rising to tips to reach that mouth better. He feels the sharp edge of wood push into his spine, nothing but agony as Tom unmakes him with his mouth, his hands. 

When they break apart, Harry’s breath stutters, he feels so broken apart, so useless, he wants to weep at this imitation, he wants more, greedy little boy that he is. 

“Not now, darling. Soon, soon we shall meet again.” Tom breathes into his upturned mouth, his hand coming up to cradle the sharp line of Harry’s jaw. Harry feels the ache of emotion, the tears that glitter in his eyes. 

“When? Please, please when?” His grip on Harry’s jaw turns violent, fingers digging in. Harry grinds his jaw, pushes further into those hands. He wants with all of himself, wants to bear the marks that Tom will give him, wants something visceral to remember him by. 

“Soon, my soul, soon.” It feels so bitterly like the only word he’s ever been given when he gives so much in return. Tom bites at the jaw he’s turned in his hand and Harry arches higher, wants nothing but to melt into this being. _Take me with you, take me with you_ , he begs with grasping hands, insatiable fingers. 

He feels bereft, empty in the next instant, in the span of breath it takes for Tom to press a kiss against his mouth and Hermione’s lilting voice calling his name. He turns quickly, brushes eyelashes too long, tear gatherers, tries to breathe through the pain of separation. 

Hermione doesn’t ask, and Harry doesn’t tell. 

15

Life with Sirius ... feels like a full meal, satisfying but slightly uncomfortable. They switch gloomy for airy, bright. They both flinch at small spaces so their cottage in the country boasts only four enclosed rooms within (bathroom and bedroom, for each) and enough outdoor space that Harry could cry just from seeing it. 

He smiles some days. He listens to tales that reminisce of adventurous boys, daring feats, danger, exhilarating heart thumping peril, and he cracks fissures that let Sirius slowly steep in. 

Some days are better than others, some days his enthusiasm is forced, fakes it until it’s almost not quite real. Sirius doesn’t know him well enough yet and he tries, he tries so hard to make up for time and separation and his own demons. He doesn’t think Harry has them. He’s Mother May I most days, late nights and biscuits for breakfast. 

He calls him prongslet and it breaks Harry’s heart every time. 

Remus slowly starts moving in. And even though Harry’s only been kissed oh so sweetly just the once, _(and he burns, burns, burns for it again)_ he spies hands fisted in cardigans and flannels, eyes that catch and hold. He knows this dance. This is a flame rekindled. 

There are still just two bedrooms. 

Remus is tentative, naturally reads Harry like an open book, remembers him from that too, too quiet third year when Harry was checked out. He doesn’t pry, he never prods, he lets Harry have his silence. 

On his birthday, Hermione comes over, and they crowd around him and the misshapen cake that Sirius and Remus had made for him with so much love. He holds his breath as fifteen candles flicker before him. 

His wish hasn’t changed in four years and he makes it again. 

16, found (once again)

He’s taken to exploring the dense woods around the cottage during the summer. He spends hours, full days outside, feels like this fresh air and isolation is doing him wonders, and Sirius is just happy that he’s happy. Harry keeps out all day, making friends with all the snakes he finds in the streams and hidey holes, flowers and shrubs. 

He finds Tom Riddle one day. 

He sits, pretty as you please, on a dark as night blanket. His collar undone and his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He sits just on the other side of their barrier. The blanket straddles the middle. 

Harry wants to run to him, in cut offs and an old band shirt of Sirius’, his trainers dirty and muddy from wading in the stream on such a hot day. Tom Riddle looks elegant, Harry feels hot shame at his bird boned body and his wildness. 

But Tom’s eyes look nothing but inviting. He props an arm on one knee and beckons him closer. 

“Not surprising for them to use Fidelius, but I didn’t think they’d make the same mistake twice. More the fool.” That star shines just for Harry again as he slides through morals and doubt to get closer. 

“How did you know?” Not what he immediately wants to say, he wants to swallow whole the space between them, he wants to feel that mouth again, he wants to be the center of Tom Riddle’s universe. 

“Darling,” The sweet drawl of that treasured word slinks out of his mouth to curl around Harry, “I could find you anywhere.” Harry beams, megawatt smile that makes his face ache, he hasn’t done it in so long. 

He crawls forward on the blanket, hunches over his knees close to that invisible wall that separates them. _”I’ve missed you so much.”_ A quiet, aching admission shared in their own language, it makes it taste so much more truthful on his tongue. 

Tom Riddle raises his hand and the wall vibrates, melts away. Harry has one fleeting thought, a wonder at who else has betrayed them, who has defected, a trace of a thought really when Tom pulls him closer. 

“A kiss, Harry. Give me one sweet kiss.” Harry immediately complies, crawls over Tom’s knees to sit in his lap, drapes his arms loose over shoulders like the girls at Hogwarts do, when it’s sunny and spring outside. He tips his head down, let’s his mouth open when Tom’s kisses turn darker, wetter. Tom’s hands slide around his hips, and he can feel where his fingers meet on the small of his back, the squeeze that he gives him. It drags a moan out of him and he pushes on his knees to get closer, to devour and be devoured. 

Tom nips, hard on his bottom lip, a shock that jerks his head away, still feels like Tom’s attached and copper blooms bright in his mouth. Tom licks the bite, eyes on him the entire time. 

There’s a vivid stripe of red on Tom’s tongue, swallowed down with their combined spit. Something primal explodes between them, this giving of blood. 

Tom surges forward, hands gripping, hungry, ravenous. Harry clutches close, holds onto the sharp lines of Tom’s body as his back hits the blanket with a low thud, he arches away from the impact, right into Tom. 

“Give me everything. I want it all.” Tom is a greedy boy in all ways, just like Harry. Harry nods, smiling with his bottom lip, cracked open like his heart, trapped between white teeth. His legs spread, cradling Tom between them, and his hands are soft when they touch the shell of Tom’s ear, hot from the sun, his jawline, his own lips. 

“It’s yours.” He whispers, smiling, watching the dappled light coming through the trees on Tom’s lovely face. 

“Yes. It is, isn’t it, darling?” Harry nods, seriousness on his face, he would never _lie_ to Tom. Tom smiles, sharp and broken and so unbelievably, irrevocably Harry’s. He wants to be the only one to see it. 

“I have something for you.” His hand twists close to their faces and it’s as if he pulled the object from air, but there it is, held between two long fingers. 

A ring. 

Gold and onyx. 

“Will you wear it for me?” Tom is not asking him, not really. But he nods, would say yes to him again and again. Harry’s face tightens, flushes all over, a heat that flames under Tom’s scrutiny. Harry smiles, turns his head to expose his throat but watches Tom underneath long black lashes. 

Tom sits back to slide it on his left hand, the ring finger. He traces the ridge of Harry’s finger, the flat palm, along the inside of his arm, until his hand lands, promising, on his heart. 

“Always.” He whispers into the breeze. 

Tom’s passion flows on that same sweet breeze. He kisses the side of Harry’s neck, a tongued mouthful and the tiniest imprint of sharp teeth that has Harry gasping and arching. Tom licks his way back to his mouth, pushes fingers into Harry’s bare thighs. Harry wraps his little arms around his neck again, utterly lost, surrounded by happiness. 

Tom kisses him swollen under a canopy of trees. 

17

“He’s just being petulant, Sirius. He understands, but I’m sure it’s incredibly frustrating for him.” Harry listens to Remus’ calming voice, he can imagine Sirius, angry scowl and mad eyes, back ramrod straight with tension. They’re in the kitchen and Harry knows that Sirius stands there, before the window, peering into the trees like Lord Voldemort could show up in an instant. 

Tom has been visiting him constantly since last summer hols. Tom. Harry clenches his fist, nails digging into the fleshy meat of his palm and it _burns_ , but he holds his breath and his temper and listens. 

“He’s in too much danger. I’ve always encouraged him to have friends over, I wouldn’t care if his - I don’t care. I don’t care. I want him happy, but more importantly-” He pauses, absolutely sure Harry is hanging on his every word (he is). “I want him safe.” 

Harry deflates a little and fingers unclench to twist the locket around his neck. He’s stuck between loves. 

Stuck between. 

He comes away from the wall and slides into his bedroom, the door latching softly behind him. He pulls his wand from his pocket and does the spells that Tom taught him. It feels like Tom’s own bubble of solitude, like being in his arms. 

His magic surrounds him daily, the ring, the locket. He never takes them off, showers with them on and when he looks at himself in the mirror he’s adorned in Tom’s treasures. 

There’s something telling in that. 

He falls back on his bed and lets his body bounce for a moment or two. 

One more year. 

19

“My Lord…” Tom’s face hardens mid sentence and Harry panics. “Tom, please-please?” The sob echoes in the room, choked off screams follow immediately, whimpers and groans. 

He finds himself on the floor, his chair lying on one side, the table crooked. The shiny wood floor fogs over with his breathing. 

He trembles once the curse is lifted. The _Cruciatus_ affects him the same every time, wicked, horrible agony chases lightning fast to his very bones, pulses with so much pain he’s sure that he’s gone, he won’t survive this time.

“What have I told you, Harry? How many times will you pay for this lesson, darling?” Tom crouches beside him and his hand cradles the soft curls that lie along his skull. His fingers spread like a spider, pulling his eyes up to him. “I expect so much from you, I know. I left you alone too long.” And Harry thinks _yes, yes, you did_ in the same heartbeat as _you’re here now, you’re here with me._ ”But regardless, you will strive for perfection now.” Tom gives him no smile, which is a smile itself. He’s learning the cues that Tom gives him. 

“I will. I will, I promise.” Harry’s eyes are manic, obsessive in the firelight of their study. Tom is here, Tom is teaching him so much of their world, the way of it, and Harry still struggles. He feels so bitterly disappointed in himself. 

Harry takes the hand offered to him and Tom holds him close, one hand still wrapped in his hair and the other wraps around his back. Tom always wants him so desperately after punishment, and Harry, Harry would gladly suffer for him.

**Author's Note:**

> It all started with Harry seeing Riddle in the Mirror of Erised. I usually only start a story if I have that first line to work with and I feel like I have more to contribute to this but I really think it can be contained within itself. Thank you so   
> much for reading!


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